New video exposes NYPD brutalizing students in protest against Petraeus’ professorship

Video footage has emerged showing New York police using heavy-handed tactics while detaining students protesting against former CIA chief David Petraeus becoming a university professor. RT spoke to one of the arrested rally participants.

The video shows a demonstrator being pressed against the pavement
by several policemen, with one of the captors punching the man’s
exposed kidney area.

The footage supports the claim of the activists from the City
University of New York (CUNY) that police were brutal in
dispersing a rally on Tuesday, when 75 people took part in a
demonstration protesting former CIA chief, David Petraeus, being
given a teaching position at the school.

Six of the protesters were arrested that day and have been
charged with obstruction of governmental administration, riot,
resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. One of them is
24-year-old Denise Ford, who spent 28 hours in police custody
following the rally.

“They pushed us on to the street and they just started from
there where they grabbed one of my comrades, slammed his head
against the car and were just all on top of him”, Ford told
RT’s Marina Portnaya. “Then I went to try help him out and in
the process I ended up falling in between two cars on the back of
my head. Then I proceeded to get up. And when I looked to the
back of me there were cops on top of my other comrade. I
witnessed they picked up his shirt and a police officer took two
to five blows to his kidneys. And then a cop just came and
grabbed me, pulled me back and cuffed me”.

The Ad Hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY, the
organizer of the rally, issued a press release which described
what happened on Tuesday as a “brutal, unprovoked police
attack during a peaceful protest” and cited eyewitnesses
accounts as proof of that.

"As students were chanting 'War Criminal Petraeus Out of CUNY
Now,' I was shocked to see several police officers grab and
brutalize one of the demonstrators," said City College
student Yexenia Vanegas, according to the press-release. "This
was completely unprovoked, as demonstrators made clear that they
were there to defend our university in a peaceful protest."

Petreaus’ involvement with the university has been met with broad
criticism from students, faculty and staff members who say they
don’t want their college to host the man who oversaw wars, drone
strikes and alleged torture tactics in the Middle East. Academics
and graduate students at CUNY have released a statement calling
for all charges to be dropped against the six students arrested
by the NYPD.

“We emphatically support the efforts of these CUNY students to
resist the attempts by the U.S. government and the CUNY
administration to turn the university into an infamous “war
college" with the appointment of Petraeus. He is
responsible for countless deaths and innumerable destruction in
Iraq and Afghanistan as a war commander and chief of the
CIA,” the letter reads.

Petreaus’ plans to begin a new career as a visiting professor for
CUNY have been met with criticism this summer. In July news
emerged he would receive a six figure salary for the job.
Following widespread indignation the ex CIA chief’s lawyer
announced that the general would fill the post for just $1.

“Whether being paid $200,000 or $1, this mass murderer must
not be allowed to teach at CUNY,” a leaflet calling for
September protests reads.

The demonstration occurred during a fundraiser event, outside
CUNY’s Macauley Honors College where Petraeus has been appointed
to teach a class on public policy.